


Hounding Secrets

by Lunaraen



Series: Fangs and Family [4]
Category: Challenge of the Spooky Isles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Greek and Roman Mythology - Freeform, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 01:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaraen/pseuds/Lunaraen
Summary: Theseus doesn't fear who or what he is. He's critical, to be sure, but there's no fear of himself.Of what others might think, though? Those he cares about?There's some fear there.





	Hounding Secrets

It's wrong to say that secrets don't mean anything to Theseus.

But it's a little less wrong to say he's used to them, that he's carried enough to not pay any mind to holding one, or a million, more.

They've been part of his life for forever, woven into everything he's said or done since he was old enough to understand what a secret was and still young enough to think his dad was the coolest person in the world, to be honored to help him at all, even if that just meant flicking the right lever at the right moment with no one looking.

Few things hold even a flickering flame in comparison to spending his entire life lying about his lineage, lying about the nature of his father and his abilities.

That doesn't stop some things from competing well and coming close.

Especially when, while still few, there _are_ other secrets he's kept for at least as long, such as how his room came only second in security to his father's own not out of concern for outside attackers coming in, but of what was inside getting out, damaging himself or others, how he managed to schedule every event and training session to land anywhere but the day of the full moon without anyone else ever suspecting a thing, even if the latter was admittedly easier due to everyone's blind admiration and his father's assistance.

A tiny little secret in that, one he doubts his father even understood, is that Theseus has lived like that for almost all his life, and it may just be the normality and experience that keeps him from fearing what he becomes.

It may be inconvenient to be a wolf once a month, but he's always kept his mind, in some form, always in control to a point.

The process, mind, is a starkly different story.

There's an understandable sort of pain that comes with having his body broken and reconstructed two times too many in a single night, if only once a month, and he fears the full moon for that alone.

Well, no. Heroes don't fear things. Dread, maybe, abhor or despise, pledge their lives and efforts towards fighting or prevailing against, but "fears" isn't the right-

Theseus bites the inside of his cheek, frowning (and trying not to wince at the tangy taste of blood).

It's the right word and the _only_ word.

Heroes can fear things, especially when they're mortal, not really heroes, and no longer have to try and put up any sort of perfect front.

His friends are real heroes, odd as they might be, and they're still human, still love and laugh and hurt and _fear_.

( _Entirely unrelated_ , but yet another secret Theseus holds, under threat of being wrestled, is how Durango dislikes the sight of blood for more than just nausea-related reasons.)

They have their prides _and_ their fears, and Theseus is allowed both as well.

He fears the pain that he knows will come tonight, knows the moon will be full from the way his blood feels like lightning rushing through his veins, from the way his teeth are just slightly sharper already, his sense of smell stronger and likely not just because he's finally recovered from a small cold.

Theseus fears how his friends will react, if he lets them know. He ought to warn them soon, if he isn't going to make himself scarce before nightfall.

He's proud of how long he's kept it secret, how well he feels he knows them and how reliable a judge of their character he believes himself to be, and he's proud that he doesn't fear himself.

He's not sure if he ever did.

What he did fear, to be fair, was how he got to be this way, what it said of him and those around him, what people would think if anyone knew, never mind people he personally knew.

(There weren't really many of those, back home.

Any, really.

Several people he grew to know distantly, and everyone knew of him as their hero, the adored son of their leader, but even as desperate as he'd been back then, none of them could count as friends. He didn't want to squander the chance he might actually make one, though, or scare people away by leading them to believe he'd done something worth cursing. Hero worship, empty and blind, beat loneliness.)

There were no tales, none he'd been told at least, of people turning into wolves regularly, outside of temporary and special rituals.

It wasn't the sort of thing that occasionally cursed children the way it did him, randomly and seemingly for no reason, and while his father had told him for years that it was Zeus's fault, a bitter curse placed by an envious and vengeful brother who couldn't stand Poseidon having an adoring son, Theseus had stopped entirely believing that lie early on, even if some doubts persisted.

After all, Zeus had many enemies, and none of them had his issue.

There was one wolf-specific case he knew of, involving his uncle, but it had been rather permanent and horrifically earned.

It had been about Lycaon.

He'd been a hero, a beloved ruler, a person of fantastic standing and renown.

And then he'd tried to trick Zeus, suspicious that he wasn't really a god but unaware of how one of the horrified servants had confided in Zeus upon is arrival.

What followed was the first and only funeral Theseus could recall attending, and it had been for Lycaon's poor son, who Theseus had played with on several occasions before his untimely end.

Lycaon had fled into the wilderness, forever a wolf and never to be seen.

(It was the sort of life experience and warning tale Theseus didn't need, even at that age and even if he hadn't had his affliction. Not trying to trick his uncle seemed like a good idea.

Still, coupled with the ending message, that becoming a wolf was a punishment, Theseus had to wonder if the warning wasn't already too late for him, if he hadn't done something diabolical as a toddler to earn his uncle's wrath, to earn a punishment never seen before or again, no matter how well he could reason it away as unlikely.

It was relieving, in the numb, expectant way Theseus has come to accept the truth whenever Poseidon finally decided to share it, to learn his uncle had nothing to do with it.

Theseus still isn't quite sure how to feel about it merely being the result of a failed command block experiment, an explosion of dangerous and magical proportions when Theseus had unwittingly gotten too close to one of his father's tests, but it sounds right. After all, if it was something his father meant to do, something he could intentionally control, Theseus couldn't imagine so many years passing without Poseidon doing it to Zeus.

What love he has for his son is misguided, but it's there, buried as it might be under greed and schemes.

What love he has for his brother is laughably nonexistent, and Poseidon would gladly take the chance to afflict his brother with fleas and such a "problem" so reliably. The amount of trouble Poseidon could get into on full moons alone, without Zeus able to use his own array of command blocks, would be staggering.)

The others seem to know little about Greek myths and tales, so they wouldn't know how his little transformations stand out, and they once lived far enough away from the isles he calls home that word of Lycaon's deeds and punishment has probably never reached them.

To tell them should be easy, so easy when they already know he comes from a house of lies and secrets, one he built and maintained with his dad until they came into his life.

What's one more surprise?

Besides, he'd rather them find out on his terms, be able to act as damage control and answer questions, than find him when he's not expecting it, come across him or go searching for him in the dead of night to find an abnormally large wolf.

The issue, really, isn't so much his hesitance. Honestly, it's not, as critical as he is of how much of his cowardice is at fault. That may be part of the problem, but the larger obstacle, letting him hide behind his own lies to himself, would be how they've been travelling for hours, straying from their course here and there but ultimately trekking nonstop on foot, and how Quinn and Durango have been bickering since noon, when Theseus was just beginning to realize that he'd ought to tell them soon if he was planning on doing it at all with daylight.

The uncomfortable feeling that comes with them arguing has lessened, easing up as they lean more and more towards teasing and gentler bickering, and Theseus almost feels silly for putting it off until the group has begun to set up camp. Durango and Quinn are still at it, to be fair, but it's no longer so tense or openly hostile.

It's not uncommon for the two to bicker, and while friends arguing isn't normally a good thing, everyone seems to be gladly taking the chance to rest. There's an edge to both their words, one he wishes wasn't there, but their tones aren't without some humor, their smiles brief and reluctant but smiles all the same.

It seems he's finally out of excuses.

And, just as Theseus clears his throat, wondering what to say while marching on anyway because he's been puzzling over that for a while now and _if the answer isn't going to strike him now, too bad_ -

The ground rumbles.

It rumbles the way a child of Poseidon, growing up mostly knowing his uncle as a distant figure and a powerful one, painted as cruel and mighty by even the most petty of Poseidon's tales, cringes at.

It also rumbles in the way that any person worth their salt from the Greek Isles knows to fear for more mortal, if not less fantastical, reasons.

The tremble of his legs and the shaking of the ground, rocks and bits of dust jumping lightly from the dirt as his arms begin to feel like jelly from the vibrating, means trouble, and probably a monster.

Of course, when he turns, Theseus expects to see some behemoth stomping or charging towards them.

Well, charging is accurate.

But stomping would require feet and legs, which are more than the creature coming towards them has at its disposal, its mossy scales glinting almost pink in the light of a dying day.

In its defense, legs or no legs, Theseus is certainly taken off guard by how it best resembles a large wheel with blood-lust.

That's... admittedly new.

The creature feels vaguely familiar, in the sort of way that reminds him of when he was still young enough to have a tutor, of when he was reciting from dusty tomes older than him but still younger than his father.

It's an animal he's never seen outside of writing, he realizes, and even in writing it had never been treated as real, as anything concrete. It was a symbol, used in poetry, alchemic texts, stories, and now long dead sayings, representing all and none, unity, the cyclical beginnings and ends of life. It was never presented to him as _real_.

"An ouroboros?"

In hindsight, that may be slightly hypocritical, given the monsters and legends his father used and that Theseus had grown up learning to avoid or respect.

The serpent's large, easily towering over them and quickly approaching, a feat seemingly helped rather than hindered by how its tail is clutched between its jaws and how it's movement is largely accomplished through _rolling towards them_.

"A what?"

Sacha's axe likely won't do her much good against that sort of hide, though she looks half ready to try anyway, gaze darting between the ouroboros and him.

Her brow's furrowed, and not just because she's unsure of how to deal with it or the surprise adversary.

He's not the only one confused, though it may be partly because not all of them were as educated on symbolism for Greek literature as someone from the Greek Isles.

River, whose eyes are wide and who's dropped the plant she'd been readying to pot, looks less confused but more than ready to make up for it by being twice as terrified, voice small and quiet as she stares up at the rolling creature.

(Her love for animals is roughly as big as her fear of everything that stands a decent chance of attacking them. That fear doesn't keep her from fighting when she needs to. Theseus wonders is that fear would outweigh the desire to protect an animal, even if it was a wolf.

Granted, he doubts he'd be trying to attack them, and he know he couldn't be near as towering, no matter how hard he tried.)

"That's a hoop snake."

Theseus bites down any indignant comment to that, because they can argue about proper names and cultural differences later.

Toby's own indignant comment is kinder, and more understandable.

"No offense, River, but that still doesn't help!"

River's next response is about as helpful, if slightly more proactive and demonstrative.

She runs.

And Theseus feels furious for a moment, as angry as he is scared and hurt that he could have misjudged her so poorly and that she could've ran from them without a second thought, before he sees that Durango is running too, clutching Rudi's arm and nearly dragging him across the clearing in the process, before he hears River shout and realizes there's more than total blinding fear at work here.

"Everybody, try and hide behind those trees!"

The only issue with their new plan of attack is that the snake is much faster than they are.

"Scatter!"

Slugger shoves him as she shouts, pushing him to the left as she drags Mo to the right, towards where Kate is all but carrying Zed, and while they're all running in the same direction, the serpent isn't large enough to simply crush them all, wobbling slightly as it attempts to adjust to the several contradictory direction changes.

Theseus, personally, is far more grateful than he is personally wounded at being shoved aside, and he'll thank her for saving him later, once they're all well and truly safe.

Hopefully he'll be as useful in taking care of their new problem.

For now, he runs, feet thudding against the ground and reminding him that his sandals were not made for snake-created earthquakes and his fingers shaking from what may be exhaustion, after the day of travel they've already had.

It may also just be that it's hard for any part of him _not_ to tremble when the very ground rumbles, and the others seem to struggle as much with staying upright.

At least, he doesn't fall flat on his face _or_ end up ramming Quinn with his shoulder, both of which feel equally likely.

"What good are the trees going to do us, if they're all shook out of the ground?"

The forest doesn't seem close to being uprooted, though the closer they get, the less stable the equally towering trees look, and while Theseus is glad Rudi hasn't stumbled yet, he's equally happy that he's not the only one having trouble.

"Because if it hits a tree, the venom won't- ah, _shit_ \- watch out for the tail, it's got enough venom to kill ya flat!" Durango raises his voice for the last part, partly cupping his mouth, and while Theseus can hear him fine, it's definitely the sort of warning that deserves extra emphasis. Rudi's now running on his own power, rather than being yanked by the arm, and Durango's grin is as tired as it is sheepish. "Hey, Quinn, think the whole 'killing me' thing can wait 'till later?"

Quinn can't seem to muster the same sort of smile, though her huff is almost as much of a chuckle as it is exasperated.

"Yeah, okay, that's fair."

He can worry about them finding out about more of his secrets later; or never. As worried as he might be about how they'll see him, how their opinions and treatment of him will change, dealing with an actual monster, odd and obscure as it may be, is far more important.


End file.
